


Geneva

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a conference and Greg was a speaker. There's snow outside, and a bit of alpha-male in the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Geneva

Greg shook the last hand and hurried back for his coat. “That was really amazing, Inspector,” said the woman sitting back at the table on the dais.  
“Where I’m from, it’s Detective Inspector,” Greg said, grinning to himself as he shuffled papers into his bag.  
“I know.” She smiled at him as he shrugged his coat on. “But I feel I know you a little better now.” He didn’t pause, but laughed quietly. “Heading back to your hotel?”  
“Yep.”  
“Would you like a lift?”  
Greg glanced up, surprised into slowing down as he pulled his gloves on. “A lift?”  
“Yes. I’ve a car.”  
Greg straightened, pushing at his fingers absently, settling the black leather firmly on his hands. “I was just... I planned on walking.”  
“That really isn’t necessary, is what I’m saying.”  
“Well, no, but it’s... y’know. Better for the environment. And the exercise.” He laughed, a little uncomfortably.  
She got to her feet, a slow unfolding of slim legs, her skirt falling into place around her knees, her jacket settling around her hips. She reached down to her tablet and tucked it into her attache case, then looked up slowly at him, through her lashes. “You seem in very good shape, to me.”  
He looked down, grinning again. “I, uh. I’ve got someone waiting for me.”  
“Oh?” Her lips made a neat, circular pout. A bright, red, smooth circle.  
“Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”  
“At the hotel?”  
“Nah. Just outside.” Greg glanced at his watch. “He’ll be waiting. I should...” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  
“Uh. Hah.” One graceful hand pressed flat against her abdomen. “He?”  
Greg grinned and ducked his head. “Yeah.”  
He pushed his way through the revolving door and hurried out into the cold that took his breath away. “Bollocks,” he mumbled, and set his bag down against the window ledge, carefully balanced in the snow mound left by the sidewalk plows, and began slapping at his pockets for his scarf.  
“Here,” drawled a voice beside him. He glanced up without straightening, and saw his scarf dangling from two fingers.  
“Did I... no, I was wearing that!” Greg blurted, snatching it and winding it around his neck, pulling it up around his ears.  
“You were.”  
“Then how did you get it?” Greg demanded, trying not to smile.  
“Ah, ‘Detective Inspector’ doesn’t mean what it used to, does it?” Mycroft pushed his shoulder away from the wall and sniffed, squinting into the whiteness of the mountains behind Greg, carefully avoiding his eyes. “She asked you, didn’t she.”  
“Who?”  
“Madame Chair,” Mycroft said.  
“Did you put her up to it?”  
Mycroft smiled, reaching up to settle his hat. “Do you think that would have been necessary?”  
“I dunno - was it?”  
“Come along, Lestrade. I’ve been waiting out here for quite long enough, and my toes have gone numb.” Mycroft took a step to move past him.  
“Oi.” Greg caught his arm and swung him around. “You knew she was gonna make a pass at me, and you just sat back and laughed?”  
Mycroft looked down at the hand on his arm, and shifted his weight, preparing to stand and argue. “What would you have liked me to do? Stand at the back of the room with a sign? Text you in the middle of your presentation?”  
“Tell me last night, when you figured it out over dinner?” Mycroft paused, blinking at him, not quite managing to hide a frown. “Yeah, see, I saw that moment. I didn’t know what it was you’d got, but I saw the light go on. When I told that story about the squirrels on John’s leg. She was watching me through it, and I wasn’t gonna stop just because of that. And you got that little smile. Jesus. It never even occurred to you to say something.” Greg was smiling, but the expression was tight, bright, and hard.  
Mycroft’s head tipped to the side. “This bothers you? Would you like me to warn you, then? Every time I see someone eyeing you up? Weighing their chances?”  
“Y’know, I might start to think you’re losing interest.”  
“No. You won’t.”  
Greg looked down, setting his feet carefully around Mycroft’s before looking up again, his weight balanced. He wasn’t just in Mycroft’s space; he was poised to make an issue of it. “You seem pretty damned sure of yourself.”  
“Greg...” Mycroft stopped, glanced aside in mild exasperation, then looked back. “I have just been standing out here, waiting for you, in the snow, in temperatures below freezing. You have come out of the presentation having been hit on by a number of the audience on their way out, and having turned down the chair of the entire conference. Neither one of us is under any kind of illusion of inadequacy or insecurity.”  
“And just why did you wait out here, then?” Greg asked, his voice quiet.  
Now Mycroft was uncomfortable. He looked down, to the side, his toes curling in his shoes. Greg noticed the movement and started smiling again. “Go on, tell me.”  
“Yes, all right.”  
“Yes, what?”  
“Yes, a woman.”  
“What was?”  
Mycroft’s lips pressed into a flat, hard line, and a long, slow lungful of air steamed out of his nostrils. “Flirting at me,” he said, his jaw tight.  
Greg’s face split and creased into a wide grin and he rocked back to admire the view. “Aww, how sweet. Who was she?”  
“No.”  
“Tell me!”  
“I shall not.”  
“Come on, tell me.” Greg reached up with two fingers to Mycroft’s chin, coaxing his head up. Mycroft pulled away with a noise of disgust. “Who was it?”  
“Uruguay,” Mycroft finally admitted, still trying to evade Greg’s fingers.  
“There, see? You can still turn heads!”  
“Greg, stop it.”  
Greg caught the side of Mycroft’s face with his gloved palm and lifted onto his toes, leaning in to kiss Mycroft delicately on the end of his nose. “Ohh, it’s okay, honey. I’m sure you’ll pull a committee member next time.”  
“Get off.”  
“Now I know you weren’t joking. Your nose is like ice.”  
Mycroft pulled the furred collar of his coat closer around his face, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Can we move along? Thank you.”   
“So you were insecure,” Greg said, shoving his free hand into Mycroft’s near pocket.  
Mycroft frowned, annoyed, and looked down at his side, as though he could see Greg’s hand trying to squirm around his own clenched fist inside the pocket. “Certainly not.”  
“Mine outranks yours.”  
“They are neither of them ours. Yours or mine.”  
“Those’d be possessive pronouns.”  
“Oh, hush.” Greg finally heard a smile creeping into Mycroft’s voice.


End file.
